Here is Chapter Three, coming your way. Oh, and reviewers, thanks a bunch; I forgot to mention that I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY like it when people review my stuff, whether they put a complaint or a compliment. I love criticism! erm Excuse me. Read on!

Ludwig observed the egg through the microscope, wrote down what he discovered, and then continued staring it. This process went on for a long time until Roy finally got sick of it.

"How much longer?" Roy called out impatiently.

"Huh?" Ludwig had a distant look on his face. "Oh, right! Sorry, I must have gotten too into my work."

"Tell me about it," Iggy muttered.

"Anyway," Ludwig began. "I'm not very sure what's inside this egg. By the looks of it, it seems to come from Koopa descent, so chances are, there may be another Koopa Troopa inside this egg. But then again, there may not be. In fact, this egg is very curious. Very curious indeed. I have never seen such an egg as this one—"

"All right, we heard enough! Who are you, Morton?" Roy snarled. Ludwig glared at him, but merely shook his head.

"Oh, Roy?" Iggy chimed in.

"What, punk?" Roy snapped obnoxiously.

"I thought we had a deal," Iggy told him disapprovingly. When Roy seemed puzzled, he added, "Remember? I told you that I would rescue you IF you were nice to us for this week."

Roy acted a fool.

"Maybe," he muttered.

"Well, I did!" Iggy said sternly. "And you have to be nice to us."

"Whatever," Roy said, waving his hand in the air as if to shoo away a fly. Iggy gave him a dirty look, and was about to open his mouth, but Ludwig talked first.

"Alright," Ludwig said to them. "I'm all finished studying the egg. I estimate that it will be about one to two months before this egg hatches. I'll keep it here in my lab, watching over it in case something happens."

Iggy and Roy nodded in agreement.

"Okay, so," Ludwig addressed Roy. "Are you ready to undertake a blast of power from the E.G.G?"

Finally! It's about time, Roy thought.

"I'm ready," Roy answered.

"Come here," Ludwig said as he walked onto a pedestal next to a strange, circular machine. The machine looked like Professor E. Gadd had crafted it; it was truly spectacular. "You're going to walk inside this spot," Ludwig pointed to a spot on the pedestal with an X on it, "and I'll fire the beam. Be aware that this is only a prototype, thus must be taken with extreme caution. I don't know what the results will be if there is a malfunction."

"I'll take the risk," Roy responded confidently. He stepped on the designated X and looked up at Ludwig expectantly.

Ludwig began to count down. "Firing beam in three ... two..."

"LUDWIG!" came a girly scream from downstairs. It was Wendy. "GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Ludwig groaned and rolled his eyes. "Sorry, Roy, but I'll have to do it a little later on."

Roy's face went red with anger as Ludwig ran out of the room with his blue hair bouncing behind him.

"ARGH!" Roy growled. He wasn't sure whether to be mad at Wendy or Ludwig. "I was this close to getting my strength boosted!"

"It's okay, Roy," Iggy said kindly. "Ludwig will get to it eventually."

"I guess you're right," Roy sighed. He sat down on the bed.

"I am?" Iggy asked. Normally, Roy would have made some irritable remark or comment. "Uh, is there something wrong, Roy?"

"No," Roy answered gloomily. Iggy eyed him strangely.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Iggy gently added. Roy suddenly seemed to straighten back up.

"Of course I don't, knucklehead! Why I would I tell you anything?" Roy snapped.

Iggy was now completely baffled. Talk about a mood swing.

"Uh, whatever," Iggy remarked, still a bit alienated. Finally, after a few more minutes' worth of waiting, Ludwig returned from downstairs.

"Pardon me," he said to them. "Wendy had a bit of anaccident."

"What happened?" Iggy shot up immediately.

"Mind your own business, Iggy," Roy snapped at him. Iggy merely glared at him, but said nothing. Why were they bothering helping Roy out, anyway?

"Okay, back to business," Ludwig said composedly. Roy got back into position, and Ludwig started up the machine.

"Three... two... one... ignition!" Ludwig shouted. Suddenly, the machine began to vibrate tremendously. The floor shook violently, and Roy almost lost his balance.

"Earthquake!" shouted someone from downstairs. The three Koopalings were frantic; everything was falling apart.

"AARGHH!" screamed Iggy and Roy in unison.

"What's happening?" Ludwig bellowed as the floor rumbled with tremendous force. Objects fell onto the floor. The wallpaper began to tear.

Finally, in the speed of light, a narrow blue beam shot up from the tip of the machine, ricocheted against Roy's sunglasses, rebounded off of Iggy's glasses, and blasted on the mysterious egg, lying in a corner.

Within seconds, the beam stopped traveling, the floor stopped quaking, and the machine slowed down to a stop.

The three of them stood in complete silence. Ludwig's room (or, better put, what was left of Ludwig's room) was a disaster. There was a huge mess of metal and glass on the floor, and the wallpaper and flooring had ripped in several places. Finally, Ludwig broke the silence.

"There seems to have been a miscalculation," Ludwig pointed out sadly.

"You think?" Roy snarled sarcastically.

"What happened?" Iggy shouted hysterically, not knowing what had just occurred.

"I'll explain," Ludwig began, taking a seat. "I began firing up the machine, when a malfunction caused the power level to increase to dynamic proportions. I tried to stop it, but it was futile. The machine unleashed all of its power on Roy, but it seems that when the machine shook, it threw Roy off balance. Unfortunately, the machine ended up ricocheting against Roy's sunglasses and Iggy's glasses. In the end, it hit that unsuspecting egg in the corner. Now that egg's power is increased to one thousand times its original strength!"

Iggy's mouth flew open. So did Roy's.

"Talk about a coincidence!" Iggy shrieked.

"Regrettably, my machine overloaded. It's no longer functional, and it will take a long time to fix," Ludwig said lamentably.

"Just how long will it take?" Roy asked.

"About six months," Ludwig estimated.

"GRRAH!" Roy roared. "How much worse can things get? First I get grounded, and now this!"

"Not only that," Ludwig added, "but the egg seems to have taken in quite a bit of power. In fact, it'll be enough to completely annihilate the whole castle with the simple push of a finger! It depends on how strong the object inside the egg is, however."

"So what you're sayin' is that the egg will have more power than anyone in this castle?" Roy said incredulously.

"It may be much more than just that," Ludwig said ominously. "It may be stronger than anything in the whole world."

"It will be stronger than anything in the whole world?" Iggy repeated what Ludwig said with emphasis. "Holy cow!"

"Holy cow is right," Ludwig concurred. He couldn't say anything else, though, because four other Koopalings had suddenly burst into Ludwig's room.

Lemmy's wild rainbow hair loomed over his head as he spoke.

"What happened?" Lemmy said very loudly.

"Yeah, what was that rumbling?" Larry asked them in a frightened tone.

"It made me break a nail!" Wendy shrieked; she had been paying attention to a disgruntled nail ever since she had walked up to this room.

If Lemmy, Larry and Wendy were anxious, Morton was completely petrified.

"That was so scary, frightening, freaky, spooky and scary!" Morton babbled. Before anyone could point out that he had used the word 'scary' twice, he continued talking. "I was completely nervous for our lives, I mean, I heard that rumbling come from upstairs and I thought the sky was falling though basically it couldn't because we are indoors but that does not matter what does matter is that you guys are safe and luckily, you guys are! And that makes me feel so good because I really wouldn't like it if you guys were hurt because that would be terrible, horrible, awful, horrid—"

"Can it, Morton!" Roy silenced. Morton began to shut up, but his mouth continued to talk, almost instantly.

"Roy! What are you doing here? I can't believe you are here I thought you were grounded ooh when King Dad finds out you're here you are going to be in so much trouble but I won't tell, nope I'm a good Morton I just can't really believe you've escaped from the dungeons and anyway how did you get here? It's impossible nobody has ever gotten away from the dungeons not even me or Ludwig or Larry or Lemmy or Wendy or Iggy or—"

Morton had stopped talking immediately, as Roy had bashed him across the face so hard that he stumbled backwards and collapsed on the floor. Immediately, the area where he had been hit shined bright red.

"YOUCH! What was that for?" Morton yelped, rubbing his face sadly. His right eye began to water from the pain.

"Roy, that was uncalled for!" Iggy interjected.

"What are you gonna do about it, punk?" Roy snapped back.

"I can't believe you're so stupid so as to completely forget the deal we had, even after I reminded you twice! You stupid imbecile" Iggy burst out. The whole room instantly went quiet. Roy looked as if he had been smacked in the face. He lifted his fists up to punch Iggy's lights out, but put them down, recognizing the consequences. Instead, he decided to shout at him.

"Well, that's too bad!" Roy growled back.

"Fine then!" Iggy growled, even louder. Lemmy looked at Iggy as if he were an alien.

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with my brother?" he asked Iggy lightheartedly. Iggy looked at him, apparently not up for jokes, and stormed out of the room.

"He's lost it," Wendy finally said after a whole minute.

"I'm going to beat him up so bad!" Roy hissed. Apparently, Wendy seemed to have taken Iggy's side on the situation.

"We all think Morton's a total nut—"

"Hey!" Morton cried.

"—But there was no reason that you should have hit him!" Wendy screamed. "You go apologize to him, right now!"

"Go and make me!" Roy growled stubbornly.

"I think I can," Wendy suddenly said, and Roy winced ever so slightly.

"You can?" he shot back. "How?"

"Well..." Wendy fidgeted with her bow evilly. "I can tell dad that you escaped from the dungeons."

For the second time in a few minutes, Roy looked as if he had been slapped in the face. This time, however, he had no witty comeback.

"YOU WOULDN'T!" he roared, loudly enough for the X-Naut Fortress to hear.

"Watch me," Wendy said smugly. Roy looked defeated. As stubborn as he was, he didn't want to think of the consequences of what would happen if his father found out about his escaping from the dungeons. It was like getting out of prison.

"FINE!" Roy snarled. He walked to Morton, muttered a hardly audible "sorry", and stomped out of the room.

"Get back here!" Ludwig yelled. "You forgot, you're supposed to be hiding in my room."

Roy, just as huffily as he left, reentered the room, pushed Larry and Lemmy off of Ludwig's bed, and planted himself on top of it, crossing his arms angrily.

An eerie silence filled the room. Slowly, one by one, Lemmy, Larry, Wendy and Morton left the room, leaving Ludwig and Roy alone.

"You know, sometimes I seriously don't know why you act like that," Ludwig said to him. Roy gave Ludwig a dirty face, cursed under his breath, and continued to stare down at the floor in frustration.

The moon had already come up. Ludwig went downstairs to dinner, along with the rest of the Koopalings. Roy stayed sitting on the bed huffily, thinking about nothing. He was furious with Wendy, Iggy, Morton, the whole lot of them. This anger had made him tired, though. He dozed off on Ludwig's bed.

A creepy green aura filled the room. The egg, forgotten in the corner, was beginning to absorb the power it had gained. Roy, who was now napping peaceful, made no notice of it...

There you go! R & R please! Thank you! This was one of my longer chapters, I'm quite proud of it... Chapter Four will be coming up soon!